Huffines Institute Director's Blog

Where do you get your information about exercise, activity, or sports medicine? Can you trust that information? Those are two questions that seem to drive everyone in today's 'information age'. Information is ever present in our daily lives, from the seemingly endless news shows, to the incessant drone of radio-talk shows, to the pontificating experts on TV talk shows. So who should you believe?

Our newest podcast is a great conversation with Kevin Hughes and I'd encourage everyone to download it and listen. Kevin is a long-time comedian with many honors and probably one of the deepest thinkers I've ever known. Plus, as most comedians are, he may be one of the most astute observers of human behavior out there. Kevin has had a long and burning interest in health - both physical and mental health - and often this interest and his observations come up in his comedy. So while we...

A quick test: Raise your hand if you think that "Sports Medicine" only pertains to elite athletes..... This is an important question to us because after all, we are an "Institute of Sports Medicine and Human Performance". Does that mean that we are and should be only concerned about what happens on the practice field and in the arena? Or is there some way that what we do and study is applicable to everyone?

Rhabdomyolysis – That’s a scary word to start my first Director’s blog with, but that word and the occurrence of rhabdomyolysis (“rhabdo” for short) in a cluster of 13 football players at the University of Iowa on Jan. 25 encapsulate so much of what Sports Medicine is about. Rhabdo is a condition where a lot of muscle is broken down and leads to some extreme endpoints like brown urine and potential kidney damage. While Rhabdo can occur from severe, traumatic accidents, we are hearing more a...